Affiliation:
1. Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry University of British Columbia Vancouver British Columbia Canada
2. Centro de Investigación Biodiversidad Sostenible‐BioS Piura Peru
3. Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry University of British Columbia Vancouver British Columbia Canada
Abstract
AbstractExpert knowledge is used in the development of wildlife habitat suitability models (HSMs) for management and conservation decisions. However, the consistency of such models has been questioned. Focusing on 1 method for elicitation, the analytic hierarchy process, we generated expert‐based HSMs for 4 felid species: 2 forest specialists (ocelot [Leopardus pardalis] and margay [Leopardus wiedii]) and 2 habitat generalist species (Pampas cat [Leopardus colocola] and puma [Puma concolor]). Using these HSMs, species detections from camera‐trap surveys, and generalized linear models, we assessed the effect of study species and expert attributes on the correspondence between expert models and camera‐trap detections. We also examined whether aggregation of participant responses and iterative feedback improved model performance. We ran 160 HSMs and found that models for specialist species showed higher correspondence with camera‐trap detections (AUC [area under the receiver operating characteristic curve] >0.7) than those for generalists (AUC < 0.7). Model correspondence increased as participant years of experience in the study area increased, but only for the understudied generalist species, Pampas cat (β = 0.024 [SE 0.007]). No other participant attribute was associated with model correspondence. Feedback and revision of models improved model correspondence, and aggregating judgments across multiple participants improved correspondence only for specialist species. The average correspondence of aggregated judgments increased as group size increased but leveled off after 5 experts for all species. Our results suggest that correspondence between expert models and empirical surveys increases as habitat specialization increases. We encourage inclusion of participants knowledgeable of the study area and model validation for expert‐based modeling of understudied and generalist species.
Funder
Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico
Subject
Nature and Landscape Conservation,Ecology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献